Jiang-Li woke up with a startle as he heard the train announcement system signal his destination. He felt the wet drool from his nap falling down off the side of his mouth, which he wiped away as he got up and moved towards where the doors were. The smooth, magnetic nature of movement on the pneumatic train had made is surprisingly easy to doze off as he rode out the half-hour ride to his destination.
“This train is now arriving at...Acha...san.”
A minute after the system announcement, the train came to a smooth halt before the doors opened, and the trade of crowd began at the doors. Jiang walked with the outward people, and headed towards the stairs leading up.
Jiang was supposed to be meeting up with a contact at the Achasan Zoo to learn more details about a special kind of Uplink Module service. He wasn’t sure what made it “special” and he hadn’t heard any other tabloids write about it strangely enough, so his journalist-instincts told him to jump on it ASAP.
Jiang sat on a bench, listening to the calls of the exotic birds that made up the cacophony of the zoo. His contact was apparently running a bit late, so he was taking his time to relax with a strawberry sno-cone. He was about to doze off for the second time that day, but before his eyelids shut, he saw him.
“Well hello, mister.”
Jiang’s eyes felt like adrenaline had rocketed them to full attention. His contact, 53 year-old japa-chinese Daisuke Hanamura, was walking towards him. His default smile felt warmer than the 68 degree sunlight was giving Jiang as he walked towards him to shake his hand.
“Hi, Mr. Hanamura. You doin’ good today?” Jiang said as he guided him on the bench he was sitting on.
“I’m doing fine young man. I suppose you are too?”
Jiang rubbed the back of his head with a sheepish smile. “Eh, as much as it can after the fifth jo-pok pinch you’ve been in.” They both laughed heartily, nearly matching volume with the avian cacophony of the zoo. “Anyways, so you say you’ve got some info on this new Uplink thing going on?”
“Oh yes.” Hanamura replied. “I take many people in the Hives I work at for their services. They’re a very high quality one too though. They don’t operate very publicly in there and no one else is supposed to know about it.”
Jiang raised an eyebrow. This was supposed to be secret? Then why was this man telling him this outside the Hives?
“I can see the look on your face and I don’t blame you” Hanamura looks towards the bright blue sky.. “Well, lately, some of the people I take to the service haven’t been heard from, you see. Most of them usually come back as normal, but there are some folk who I’ve seen walk in the door and never come out.”
Hearing all of this made Jiang concerned, yet Hanamura continued. “I can’t tell if it’s murder or somethin’ else, but I figure someone like you could...well, figure it out.”
Jiang didn’t need to be properly asked. “I’ll take it. Show me the way.” He got up but before he started walking, asked one more thing. “You’re...going to be safe right?”
Hanamura laughed. “Of course! If they were after me, I’d have been face down in Kool-Aid with a knife in my back years ago!”
Soon, Jiang found himself in front of the famous Uplink service building in the undergrounds of the Hives. There wasn’t a whole lot light coming in, with most of it being assortments of caged light bulbs in the area. The building in front advertised it’s services of how you could use it, like re-experiencing things like your first kiss, or “your first time”. That last one made him go “Ick.” but he pressed on.
Jiang walked inside but didn’t see anyone. At the front desk too. Strange. And yet he noticed a keypad door behind it. Or rather, one that seemed to have gotten jammed somehow. Jiang leaped over the desk, and inspected the door. The debris from the state of the building got kicked in somehow, and left it just barely open enough where it didn’t auto lock. “I have no idea how I got this lucky, but we take those.” He opened the door slowly and was greeted stairs going down with lights on the side.
Jiang walked down them further and further until he saw a blue glow coming out. He began to get curious as he walked down, but part of him started to get nervous when a familiar, iron smell reached his nostrils suddenly.
“Ah, crap.”
He was suspecting the worst as he approached the blue-light-coated room with the scent getting stronger. The moment he was in the room though, Jiang felt like he’d made a mistake.
There was a comfy looking yellow table, and an open preservation tube a few meters away from it. On the left of them both was a big computer system with many screens and even more data on them. And then there was the occupants
One brown-haired man was dressed in a doctor’s outfit while a white, blond-haired man in front of the tube, was getting dressed in some business casual blue polo-shirt and brown khakis. Jiang took notice that the “doctor” had a smoking glock, and then looked at the source of the blood.
It was a corpse. Specifically, of a black-haired man.
Everyone in the room was dead silent with Jiang’s arrival. Jiang scanned the surroundings more and began to piece together how exactly everything worked.”
“So...uh...” Jiang started to break the silence. “Is this... like a more suicidal version of that program in that movie Gattaca, where disadvantaged people take the place of the depressed, not-disadvantaged?”
“Eh, close to it.” The blond man replied.
“Am I supposed to know about this?”
“Not really, no.” The doctor spoke up.
“If I promise not to say a word about any of this, will you let me leave here alive?”
“Probably.” The doctor spoke up again.
“Close enough.”
Jiang started to walk up the stairs, but before that, he turned around and produced an empty recording tape from his bag and slung it at the gun-hand of the doctor, knocking it across the room.
“Just a precaution.” Jiang whispered to him, before he bolted up the stairs.
Jiang relaxed as he rode the train back home. He was kind of disappointed that he didn’t get to write anything, though he made sure to tell Hanamura that he shouldn’t look into the disappearances for “shady reasons.” He was glad the old man understood and that he would be safe.
And with the case of missing Hive people solved, he decided some R&R was in order, and started to doze off on the train.
“This train is now arriving at...Acha...san.”
A minute after the system announcement, the train came to a smooth halt before the doors opened, and the trade of crowd began at the doors. Jiang walked with the outward people, and headed towards the stairs leading up.
Jiang was supposed to be meeting up with a contact at the Achasan Zoo to learn more details about a special kind of Uplink Module service. He wasn’t sure what made it “special” and he hadn’t heard any other tabloids write about it strangely enough, so his journalist-instincts told him to jump on it ASAP.
Jiang sat on a bench, listening to the calls of the exotic birds that made up the cacophony of the zoo. His contact was apparently running a bit late, so he was taking his time to relax with a strawberry sno-cone. He was about to doze off for the second time that day, but before his eyelids shut, he saw him.
“Well hello, mister.”
Jiang’s eyes felt like adrenaline had rocketed them to full attention. His contact, 53 year-old japa-chinese Daisuke Hanamura, was walking towards him. His default smile felt warmer than the 68 degree sunlight was giving Jiang as he walked towards him to shake his hand.
“Hi, Mr. Hanamura. You doin’ good today?” Jiang said as he guided him on the bench he was sitting on.
“I’m doing fine young man. I suppose you are too?”
Jiang rubbed the back of his head with a sheepish smile. “Eh, as much as it can after the fifth jo-pok pinch you’ve been in.” They both laughed heartily, nearly matching volume with the avian cacophony of the zoo. “Anyways, so you say you’ve got some info on this new Uplink thing going on?”
“Oh yes.” Hanamura replied. “I take many people in the Hives I work at for their services. They’re a very high quality one too though. They don’t operate very publicly in there and no one else is supposed to know about it.”
Jiang raised an eyebrow. This was supposed to be secret? Then why was this man telling him this outside the Hives?
“I can see the look on your face and I don’t blame you” Hanamura looks towards the bright blue sky.. “Well, lately, some of the people I take to the service haven’t been heard from, you see. Most of them usually come back as normal, but there are some folk who I’ve seen walk in the door and never come out.”
Hearing all of this made Jiang concerned, yet Hanamura continued. “I can’t tell if it’s murder or somethin’ else, but I figure someone like you could...well, figure it out.”
Jiang didn’t need to be properly asked. “I’ll take it. Show me the way.” He got up but before he started walking, asked one more thing. “You’re...going to be safe right?”
Hanamura laughed. “Of course! If they were after me, I’d have been face down in Kool-Aid with a knife in my back years ago!”
Soon, Jiang found himself in front of the famous Uplink service building in the undergrounds of the Hives. There wasn’t a whole lot light coming in, with most of it being assortments of caged light bulbs in the area. The building in front advertised it’s services of how you could use it, like re-experiencing things like your first kiss, or “your first time”. That last one made him go “Ick.” but he pressed on.
Jiang walked inside but didn’t see anyone. At the front desk too. Strange. And yet he noticed a keypad door behind it. Or rather, one that seemed to have gotten jammed somehow. Jiang leaped over the desk, and inspected the door. The debris from the state of the building got kicked in somehow, and left it just barely open enough where it didn’t auto lock. “I have no idea how I got this lucky, but we take those.” He opened the door slowly and was greeted stairs going down with lights on the side.
Jiang walked down them further and further until he saw a blue glow coming out. He began to get curious as he walked down, but part of him started to get nervous when a familiar, iron smell reached his nostrils suddenly.
“Ah, crap.”
He was suspecting the worst as he approached the blue-light-coated room with the scent getting stronger. The moment he was in the room though, Jiang felt like he’d made a mistake.
There was a comfy looking yellow table, and an open preservation tube a few meters away from it. On the left of them both was a big computer system with many screens and even more data on them. And then there was the occupants
One brown-haired man was dressed in a doctor’s outfit while a white, blond-haired man in front of the tube, was getting dressed in some business casual blue polo-shirt and brown khakis. Jiang took notice that the “doctor” had a smoking glock, and then looked at the source of the blood.
It was a corpse. Specifically, of a black-haired man.
Everyone in the room was dead silent with Jiang’s arrival. Jiang scanned the surroundings more and began to piece together how exactly everything worked.”
“So...uh...” Jiang started to break the silence. “Is this... like a more suicidal version of that program in that movie Gattaca, where disadvantaged people take the place of the depressed, not-disadvantaged?”
“Eh, close to it.” The blond man replied.
“Am I supposed to know about this?”
“Not really, no.” The doctor spoke up.
“If I promise not to say a word about any of this, will you let me leave here alive?”
“Probably.” The doctor spoke up again.
“Close enough.”
Jiang started to walk up the stairs, but before that, he turned around and produced an empty recording tape from his bag and slung it at the gun-hand of the doctor, knocking it across the room.
“Just a precaution.” Jiang whispered to him, before he bolted up the stairs.
Jiang relaxed as he rode the train back home. He was kind of disappointed that he didn’t get to write anything, though he made sure to tell Hanamura that he shouldn’t look into the disappearances for “shady reasons.” He was glad the old man understood and that he would be safe.
And with the case of missing Hive people solved, he decided some R&R was in order, and started to doze off on the train.